- Outline
We have developed a UCS-font and are releasing it now. This UCS-font incorporates characters from the principal languages of the world. Using this font set, we will be able to use many languages in information
processing.
NACSIS-CAT, our cataloging service system for libraries, is the most
popular bibliographic utility in Japan. In this system, we can use Japanese and European languages. To enable us to use European languages, we developed the "EXC font", that contains about 700 characters with
diacritical mark.
However, Japanese libraries have many books and serials in asian languages, especially Chinese and Korean. Hence, they need the ability to use asian languages in cataloging. Therefore, we are planning to implement a multi-lingual catalogue database. We choose to use UCS characters in this multi-lingual database. To spread UCS-based systems widely, we have taken the lead in developing and distributing UCS-fonts.
- About UCS
UCS is a abbreviation for the Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set. This is an international character coding system based on 32-bit encoding.
UCS was specified as ISO/IEC10646-1 in 1993, and as Japanese standard "JIS X0221" in 1995. This standard defines about 36,000 characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane(BMP). In this BMP there are about 21,000 characters of CJK Unified Ideographics, that corresponding to "Han"(Chinese characters) in China, Japan and Korea. 16-bit UCS is identical to the Unicode Standard, defined by the Unicode Consortium.
- Font specification and use
- Font name : NACSIS-UCS-min (mincho)
- Font type : TrueType font for Windows-NT (in preparation TrueType
font for Windows95 and PostScript font for UNIX)
- Coverage of characters : About 23,000 characters, that includes CJK
Unified Ideographs, Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and some symbols. We are
planning to implement Hangul and other characters.
- Use : Available at NACSIS Home Page.(http://www.cat.op.nacsis. ac.jp)
Please refer to the NACSIS Home Page.